We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate comes out on top. Its ease of deployment combined with its solid set of features and excellent service and support ratings make it a more desirable solution than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"Its efficiency and security are the most important. We are more efficient and more secure."
"The user interface, the UI, is excellent on the solution."
"Valuable features include DMZ segmentation, and IDS and IPS."
"The whole firewall functionality, including firewall policies and IPS policies, is valuable. It has all kinds of functionalities. It has IPS, VPN, and other features. They are doing quite a lot of stuff with their devices."
"Among the top features are integrated threat defence and the fact that each virtual appliance is separate so you get great granular control."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is robust and reliable."
"I have not contacted technical support. There is a lot of information on the internet for troubleshooting. All you need to do is use a search engine and you will find the information you are looking for easily."
"It protects our network."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"When we talk about data centers, we are talking about 100 gig capacity or 400 gig capacity. When it comes to active-active solution clustering and resilience and performance, Cisco should look into these a little bit more."
"The cloud does not precisely mimic what is on-premises."
"The artificial intelligence and machine learning (behavioral based threat detection), which I can this will be coming out in another year, these are what we need now."
"I'm not a big fan of the FDM (Firepower Device Manager) that comes with Firepower. I found out that you need to use the Firepower Management Center, the FMC, to manage the firewalls a lot better. You can get a lot more granular with the configuration in the FMC, versus the FDM that comes out-of-the-box with it. FDM is like Firepower for dummies."
"The Sandbox and the Web Censoring in this solution need to be improved."
"If you need to reschedule a call with the support team when you face a new issue with the product, then it may get a bit of a problem to get a hold of someone from the support team of Cisco."
"I wouldn't give them a ten. Nobody is perfect. I'll give them a nine because they help me with any issues I've had."
"The security features in the URL category need more improvement."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"If I had any criticism that I would give FortiGate, it would be that they need to stop changing their logging format. Every time we do a firmware upgrade, it is a massive issue on the SIM. Parsers have to be rebuilt. Even the FortiGate guys came in and said that they don't play well in the sandbox."
"Lacks training for new features."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Check Point NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Fortinet FortiGate report.
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